User interface (continued)

Do Not Disturb is, as expected, still an integral part of the iOS 7. It gives users further control on notifications, or rather their suppression. If turned on, it will mute incoming calls or alerts. You can allow calls from your favorite contacts and have the option to set a specific time interval in which you won't get any notifications.

Do Not Disturb mode settings

There's a dedicated toggle to activate the DND feature and it can be customized in the Notifications submenu. When Do Not Disturb is on, a crescent icon appears next to the clock in the status bar.

According to Apple, iOS 7 offers multi-tasking for all apps. Previously the true multi-tasking was reserved only for navigation or music streaming apps, the rest had to go in suspend mode.

Now, this multi-tasking for all apps will surely drain the battery faster than Apple would have liked, so there is a catch. Yes, all apps will work in the background, but the iOS will learn which one of them you use most often and when.

Let's say you open the Facebook app every morning and don't use it for the rest of the day. The iOS will soon learn that and will optimize the app to work according to your schedule until you change it. This means most of the day and night the app will still be in suspend mode (push notifications will work of course), but the iOS will run Facebook shortly before your alarm goes on and load all the content. That way when you open it, your news feed will be already updated.

We noticed that apps also update in the background when push notifications come in. This is a part of what Apple calls opportunistic updates - the iPhone waits until a data connection is available and starts the updates then, so it doesn't need to activate the connection on another occasion and waste your battery.

We haven't spent enough time with iOS to give a proper judgment on how well the new multitasking works, but once we do we'll duly update this article.

All apps that use Cellular/Wi-Fi connection and can work in the background are listed under Settings -> General -> Background App refresh.

Background App refresh

The task-switcher interface is invoked with a double tap on the Home key. It looks a lot like the webOS cards of old and, more recently, the HTC Sense Task switcher - all apps are presented with cards that you can swipe up to close. Each card has the respective app icon so you can easily recognize what's what.

Multitasking in action

The multitasking UI works in both portrait and landscape mode, but you cannot see more than three cards at a time. It's one of the limitations of the card interface and we suspect this is why HTC went for a different task switcher on the One, but here's hoping that Apple will at least fix the landscape mode down the line. By the way, you can close all three visible apps on the multi-tasking screen by swiping over all of them simultaneously with three of your fingers.

The iOS 7 Settings menu has the same layout as in previous versions but updated with the new flat and borderless look.

Besides the Background App Refresh, the iOS 7 offers even better control over the apps that use mobile data. The Cellular tab offers detailed cellular data breakdown by apps and services, allowing you to properly manage your resources.

Settings • Cellular Data settings

Another thing worth mentioning is the Vimeo and Flickr integration in addition to Twitter and Facebook. Once you enter your account details in the settings you can upload your photos straight to your Flickr gallery, while your videos will go to your Vimeo. You just need to hit the share key on a picture or a video and use the dedicated Flickr/Vimeo icon.

Sharing on Flickr and Vimeo

The last major change about the user interface is the Back gesture available in all iOS 7 default apps (maybe developers will be able to extend the support to third-party apps after launch). Whether you are in settings, App Store, Messages, Notes, Reminders, Safari, etc. a swipe from the left side of the screen will take you one step back.

Performance

As we said, the Apple iPhone 5c is running on the last year's Apple A6 chipset. It is a still very snappy smartphone and the iOS 7 runs buttery smooth, as usual. The A6 features a custom-developed dual-core CPU (which shares many of its features with ARM Cortex-A15 CPUs), clocked at 1.3GHz. It matches the scores of most of the quad-core smartphones out there running on the Snapdragon S4 Pro.

First, we ran the new Geekbech 3 test to see how the CPU and memory is doing. The iPhone 5c scored the same as the iPhone 5 and exactly half the iPhone 5s scores. As you can see Apple A6 is a good match for the quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro chipsets, but falls behind the Snapdragon 600 and 800 devices.

Geekbench 3

Higher is better

Sony Xperia Z Ultra2670

Sony Xperia Z12638

Apple iPhone 5s2561

LG G22243

HTC One1972

Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)1869

LG Optimus G1623

Huawei Ascend P61315

Apple iPhone 51296

LG Nexus 41288

Apple iPhone 5c1280

HTC Butterfly1257

Oppo R8191047

HTC One mini887

We also ran the iOS version of Linpack. The iPhone 5c is on par with the iPhone 5, while the iPhone 5s, just as Apple promises, does twice better.

Linpack

Higher is better

Apple iPhone 5s970

Apple iPhone 5546

Apple iPhone 5c532

After that we did the multi-platform GFX Benchmark. The iPhone 5c has identical results with the iPhone 5 and is on par with the Adreno 320 GPU inside the quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro chipsets powering the last year's droid flagships on the Egypt test, but falls behind them on the T-Rex benchmark.

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

Sony Xperia Z160

Sony Xperia Z Ultra60

Apple iPhone 5s56

LG G254

Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)43

HTC Butterfly S42

Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)41

Samsung Galaxy S4 Active41

HTC One37

Oppo Find 532

Google Nexus 432

Sony Xperia Z31

Sony Xperia ZL31

Sony Xperia SP31

Apple iPhone 530

LG Optimus G Pro30

Apple iPhone 5c29

Apple iPhone 529

LG Optimus G21

Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.317

Samsung Galaxy S4 mini17

Samsung Galaxy Note II17

HTC One mini15

HTC One X11

GLBenchmark 2.7 T-Rex (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

Apple iPhone 5s23

Sony Xperia Z123

Sony Xperia Z Ultra23

LG G222

Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)17.1

Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)17.1

Apple iPad 416.8

HTC Butterfly S16

Samsung Galaxy S4 Active16

Google Nexus 1013.9

LG Optimus G13.9

Sony Xperia Z13.5

Sony Xperia Tablet Z13

Sony Xperia ZL12.8

Apple iPhone 5c6.9

Apple iPhone 56.9

Samsung Galaxy S4 mini6.4

Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.36.3

HTC One mini5.6

Samsung Galaxy Note II4.9

Finally we put the iPhone 5c through the SunSpider and BrowerMark benchmarks to test the Safari's Java Script and overall browsing performance. The iPhone 5, 5c and 5s trio running on the iOS 7 occupied the first spots in our charts, showing that Apple has done a great job of optimizing its browser.

SunSpider

Lower is better

Apple iPhone 5s403

Apple iPhone 5694

Apple iPhone 5c704

Sony Xperia Z Ultra750

Sony Xperia Z1845

LG G2908

Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)1046

HTC One1174

LG Optimus G1293

HTC One mini1375

LG Nexus 41379

HTC Butterfly1397

Oppo R8191423

Huawei Ascend P63858

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

Apple iPhone 5s3549

Apple iPhone 52825

Apple iPhone 5c2799

LG G22718

LG Optimus G2555

Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)2438

Sony Xperia Z Ultra2419

Sony Xperia Z12398

HTC Butterfly S2378

Samsung Galaxy S4 Active2338

Samsung Galaxy S4 mini2314

HTC One2262

Sony Xperia Tablet Z2170

HTC One mini2164

Sony Xperia ZL2107

Sony Xperia Z2093

LG Optimus G Pro1801

Oppo Find 51797

Nexus 41794

Nokia Lumia 9201774

Google Nexus 101773

HTC Butterfly1475

Samsung Galaxy S III1247

Benchmark scores are one thing, but what matters more is that iOS 7 runs buttery smooth on the iPhone 5c with no lags or delays. Loading times might be longer than we would have liked with some apps, but the overall experience is very solid.